Traveling from East to West over thousands of years, tea has played
a variety of roles on the world scene - in medicine, politics, the
arts, culture, and religion. Behind this most serene of beverages,
idolized by poets and revered in spiritual practices, lie stories
of treachery, violence, smuggling, drug trade, international
espionage, slavery, and revolution.
"Liquid Jade"'s rich narrative history explores tea in all its
social and cultural aspects. Entertaining yet informative and
extensively researched, "Liquid Jade" tells the story of western
greed and eastern bliss. China first used tea as a remedy. Taoists
celebrated tea as the elixir of immortality. Buddhist Japan
developed a whole body of practices around tea as a spiritual path.
Then came the traumatic encounter of the refined Eastern cultures
with the first Western merchants, the trade wars, the emergence of
the ubiquitous English East India Company. Scottish spies
crisscrossed China to steal the secrets of tea production. An army
of smugglers made fortunes with tea deliveries in the dead of
night. In the name of "free trade" the English imported opium to
China in exchange for tea. The exploding tea industry in the
eighteenth century reinforced the practice of slavery in the sugar
plantations. And one of the reasons why tea became popular in the
first place is that it helped sober up the English, who were
virtually drowning in alcohol. During the nineteenth century, the
massive consumption of tea in England also led to the development
of the large tea plantation system in colonial India - a story of
success for British Empire tea and of untold misery for generations
of tea workers.
"Liquid Jade" also depicts tea's beauty and delights, not only with
myths about the beginnings of tea or the lovers' legend in the
familiar blue-and-white porcelain willow pattern, but also with a
rich and varied selection of works of art and historical
photographs, which form a rare and comprehensive visual tea record.
The book includes engaging and lesser-known topics, including the
exclusion of women from seventeenth-century tea houses or the
importance of water for tea, and answers such questions as: "What
does a tea taster do?" "How much caffeine is there in tea?" "What
is fair trade tea?" and "What is the difference between black, red,
yellow, green, or white tea?"
Connecting past and present and spanning five thousand years,
Beatrice Hohenegger's captivating and multilayered account of tea
will enhance the experience of a steaming "cuppa" for tea lovers
the world over.
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